Street art a tool of beautification in Tricity; thanks to the endeavour of artists, art lovers and administration

Sheetal

Modern architecture, greenery and urban marvel—are most common remarks made by visitors of The City Beautiful. Efforts have been made to add flavours to the cityscape in forms of visual art.

As respective administrations try to revamp Chandigarh and its neighbouring cities—Panchkula and Mohali, we bring you the new additions to public art, which range from graffiti to murals to installations. Also, artistes and art experts share their opinion on the recent works.

The eyecatchers

Sidhu Moosewala’s colourful portrait in Sector 23 is eye catching, which also has the portrait of Tupac. The artist, Ashok Kumar, who goes by the name Ashok Artz, says, “I had painted on this wall earlier as well. As there’s a liquor store nearby and many people used this wall to urinate, the owner Aerik 21 wanted to get their wall painted. Now, it has become a selfie point. We change the graffiti from time to time.”

The artist has got calls from Canada, The US and the UK for assignments post his famous Sidhu Moosewala graffiti. Just across in Sector 36, there’s another shop, Urban Desi Chai, which has lit up the empty place with another graffiti. Among the newly painted graffiti, Alliance Française de Chandigarh’s new graffiti by Brazil-born Liliane Ortega stands out.

Newly made Sector 17 underpass has become the hotspot for all installations throughout the year. The exhibition to celebrate 75th year of Independence has installations from students of the Government College of Art and the Chandigarh College of Architecture namely Mimansa, Yashi Garg, Bhanu Shirvastav and Shweta Kumari.

The art and the experts

Bheem Malhotra, Chairman, Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi, is the artist behind the recently installed mural of APJ Abdul Kalam (72 ft height) at Chandigarh University, Mohali. He says, “It was the brainchild of University’s chancellor Satnam Singh Sandhu. It is a 3D mural made of ceramic tiles and executed by Sunil Mathur. After I selected a portrait of Kalam sahib, the challenge was to execute it with proper colour balancing.”

Does Chandigarh provide the right platform for such art pieces? Malhotra says, “Graffiti aren’t suitable to the architecture of Chandigarh for it wears off with time and can easily be tampered with. When done with a proper thought-process , keeping in mind the durability, only then public art make sense.”

Diwan Manna, President, Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, also holds the same opinion and shares his reservations about wall paintings. “Any art project depends on the artist’s maturity, skills and ideas, or it could be a permanent eyesore. So, the administration should bring artist, architectures, cultural experts under one roof before executing any public art as public art represents the city, its aspirations and cultural moorings. Every public art should be commissioned work administered by a team and must be in sync with the surrounding.” He also feels that the recent installation at Matka Chowk has in a way blocked the view of the Shivalik hills and calls it a bad sculpture.

Colour of Panchkula

Haryana’s Panchkula has been redecorated. One can see the colourful walls while driving around in the daylight and at night the city glows with permanent installations of decorative lights. Mayor Kulbhushan Goyal says, “When our initiative to install decorative lights in 2021 was appreciated, we made it permanent on all major roundabouts and roads which now glow in Tricolour celebrating 75 years of Independence. The wall art has helped us narrate stories of valour and sacrifice, sports heroes and freedom fighters. We also try to inspire citizens to adopt cleanliness. The response of the citizen led us to add 50,000 sq ft area to the existing one lakh sq ft which started during the pandemic.”